The present invention relates generally to agricultural machinery, especially self-propelled harvesting machines and, more particularly, to a harvesting machine having a tapered feed trough.
DE 3727156 A1 discloses a forage harvester having a rotating cylindrical main body whose end regions carry auger plates that feed harvested crop toward a central region comprising impeller blades. Due to this arrangement, the wide crop stream discharged by the chopper drum is fanned in to a narrow crop stream corresponding to the end of the tapered region of the feed shaft in such a way that the side regions of the narrow crop mat exhibit more crop mass than the central region. This crop stream is then discharged by a post-accelerator carrying feed paddles into a lower discharge chute and from the latter onto an accompanying vehicle.
A disadvantage of the forage harvester described above is that the device which fans the chopped material needs driving energy and it must be maintained. If instead of a post-accelerator, a pair of conditioning rollers is provided in the crop discharge region of the feed shaft a further aggravating disadvantage arises. The diminished chopped material mat entering the conditioning rollers is thicker in the side region than in the central region, which results in the bearings of the pair of conditioning rollers being subjected to high stress, and the action of the conditioning rollers on the chopped material being uneven.
It is therefore an aspect of the present invention to provide a forage harvester that operates in such a way that the chopped material mat in the crop discharge region is consistently thick and operates without the use of driving energy.
The aspect of the invention is achieved by the fact that associated with the feed shaft, which converges in the direction of transport, are static crop guide devices which allow transverse transport of the chopped material over the tapering width of the feed shaft.
The above aspects are merely illustrative and should not be construed as all-inclusive and limiting to the scope of the invention. The aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent, as it becomes better understood from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.